11 comments:

The rules of gun-safety could be better stated. I've long included the "unless you have immediate direct visual confirmation that the chamber is empty" caveat, but it's cumbersome.

That said, there is also the issue of etiquette, and a gun can be entirely safe and still somewhat alarming at certain angles. In this case, it might not be immediately evident to anyone standing behind Cruz that the breach is open and both chambers empty. That's potentially impolite, and we say that armed society is polite society for a reason. Still, it is only potentially impolite, if others in the area are familiar with carrying a firearm in this manner, then etiquette is satisfied (manners are a matter of agreed custom, not some theoretical absolute).

The confusion between etiquette and safety is understandable, even when they are at odds. I always want to make sure guns are unloaded and pointed in a safe direction in my presence, and this sometimes impels me to touch someone else's firearm without quite asking first, which is really quite rude by most standards. I think that some of the dynamics mentioned in the "Macho men" article also come into play, one person's desire to ensure safety can come across as impolite to another in many ways.

So there is a second dynamic at work here. Criticizing someone for safety violations serves little purpose after the fact, so to speak. Condemning a nominal violation of some petty rule you glean from a photo is just disrespectful. It's like commenting on bad hair and pimples...it may perfectly well be true, but it is still not polite behavior. When I observe a photo of someone displaying their boogerhook, I do think they look moronic. But I only say so if I want to be demeaning. This is proven by how infrequently I say this of hot looking chicks doing the exact same thing, which I invariably blame on the photographer (not-so-hot women don't get this exemption).

This Gizmodo (who the hell is Gizmodo?) reporter has a long ways to go to beat the Champion of firearms ignorance, who also happens to be writing most of the new gun laws in California.

That would be none other than Senate Pro Tempore Kevin 'This right here has the 'bility with a thirty caliber clip to disperse with thirty bullets within half a second. A thirty magazine clip in half a second' Deleon (D-LA).

While I'm far from agreeing with anything anti-2nd Amendment, in the interest of calling it like I see it, Ted Cruz has in fact violated the 2nd Universal Firearms Safety Rule, which is better stated (in my opinion of course, but it has been around in this iteration a long time): "Never allow the muzzle of your weapon to cross the path of anything you're not willing to destroy." It's hard to see how Senator Cruz could always be certain of anyone's presence on any path behind him as he moves forward presumably in search of his vehicle, as clearly the day's (or morning's) hunting must be over. There are some things that a firearm instructor holds as gospel; most of them consider the four safety rules the gospel according to Jeff Cooper. The Colonel would be having a few words here with Senator Cruz, and they wouldn't all be about what load he's using to hunt pheasant. Carrying your gun this way is like using dummy ammo to practice with; eventually the live ammo migrates to the dummy ammo. Violations of these four rules kill people. That's why they're there. Doesn't mean at all I wouldn't vote for Ted Cruz; but I wouldn't be walking behind him either.

It is said that Mr Thompson (he of SMG fame) would not permit workers in his plant to cover others with BARREL BLANKS which are merely pieces of pipe at that stage, so Phineas has something of a point. Clearly, he's less likely than too many others to accidentally off one of his hunting party.

When you train people in the proper use of firearms as I have done for possibly more years than you have been alive, you instill a hard-wired understanding in them for the four basic principles discussed above. When you are around professionals you will find that they won't even point a plastic training gun in anyone's direction. I'm talking about people who make their living with their skill. Now take a look at how Senator Cruz is carrying his gun. Now imagine he gets used to carrying his gun with that barrel in that condition. Now imagine one day it is not unloaded and he picks it up. He is used to having his firearm barrel backward and his training pattern and mental business are two different things. Now he has a loaded gun pointing where he knows not, and from there bad things only get worse. Go get some professional training some day and carry your gun that way. See how popular that makes you. But maybe you're the kind of guy who already knows more than his instructors. Nothing left to learn. Except of course, the fundamental principles of firearms safety.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.